Where do your tax dollars go?

According to the government’s Taxpayer Advocate, around 60 percent of you pay someone else to calculate your taxes. Another 30 percent of you use tax software to get the job done. For those stuck and looking for IRS assistance, there’s bad news. The average waiting time to talk to someone at the IRS in 2012 was 17 minutes — up from around 2.5 minutes in 2004 — and rising. According to the Tax Foundation, Americans will spend more in taxes in 2013 than they will on food, clothing, and housing combined.

Not surprising, then, the federal Taxpayer Advocate ranks complexity as most onerous problem facing the tax system. Still, there seems to be very little appetite from Democrats on tax reform — either by flattening or simplifying the code.

A page the White House has set up a page to help Americans understand how exactly how their own tax bill is being spent. Below is a handy chart from the Heritage Foundation, detailing how “revenues” (and deficit spending) will be allocated.